"Bella" - a Great Movie!

Most of the believers I know are always on the look out for a good movie to watch. I recently heard an interview about a movie titled "Bella" on Family Life Radio. Directed by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde of Mexico. With Eduardo Verástegui, Tammy Blanchard, Manny Perez. I took Jo'ell to see it with our friends Robert and Traci. It was an intense movie. It involves an ex pro soccer player and a waitress; I'll leave it at that. For a preview go to http://www.bellamoviesite.com/ . Leave me your thoughts in the "comments" section if you go see it; I would like to know if you liked it.
At the showing for this movie there was a preview for a movie coming out in March of 2008 called "Under the Same Moon." it is about a mother and son from Mexico separated from each other; it looks pretty good. As a newbe in gospel work in Mexico I am trying to learn as much about the culture as I can. This movie might help. Check out the trailer for it at www.foxsearchlight.com/underthesamemoon/

Getting settled in Guadalajara

We are enjoying getting settled into our rental house here in Zapopan, a municipality within greater Guadalajara. They call neighborhoods "Colonia's" and ours is Pinar de la Calma. It is a narrow one way street where people park on both sides of the street. There some things that are different than our neighborhood in the Oregon:

Bottled water truck comes twice a week and knocks at the gate.

Neighborhood vendors abound and sing their product jingle as they walk up the street.
We get tamales, pastries, flowers and honey sold on our street on a regular basis.

The garbage truck comes twice a week and it's free!
The drivers have a cowbell on their belt to let you know they are coming.

Churchbells from up the street are heard on a regular basis.

We are enjoying it very much. I am glad the kids are making friends. The neighborhood is pretty quiet right now with a lot of people gone for the holidays. My friend Hector is in California and should be back next week. I am looking forward to seeing him again. He has been a big help in showing me around the city.

The Trip

A friend of mine asked if we had any car trouble on our trip down. The cars ran great though the trailer we were towing behind the Explorer was too heavy for the little V6 and it had to work hard to get it here. The bumpy roads and the weight in the trailer were too much for the axle, though, and one side bent. Thankfully it got us here. The latch also popped off the back door as we were driving. Praise God nothing fell out!! Made for an exciting view for Jo'ell as she was following me! We paid a wide variety of prices for gas, the lowest being about $2.70 and the highest $3.70. I stopped in one place out in the middle of nowhere in Arizona and was going to gas up until I saw the price was $4.69. I decided to try to make it to the next town! They had a sign taped to the front door saying if you didn't like their price to go somewhere else, so I obeyed.

It was a blessing to meet up with Alfredo and his friends in Laredo, Texas to drive down with in Mexico. The photo above was about 3 am when we stopped for some coffee. There were no Circle K's around but we found this little store. It did the trick and kept us going till 2 pm the next day!

South bound!

"Colina's Del Sur"
Hills of the South
our neighborhood in Autlan

Star of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Autlan




Our house is filled with boxes and excitement is in the air! Things are going well as we can feel the tide rising. Soon we will begin our voyage to the heart of Mexico. Our departure date is now November 26th…..a true Thanksgiving event! We have made plans to drive down with my brother in law, Alfredo Hernandez, (Jo'ell's sister; Dawn's husband). He is a Mexican citizen and is going to visit his parents near Mexico City. This will be a real blessing to us. We will meet him in Laredo, Texas and he will go with us most of the way to Guadalajara. We will be able to make it to Guadalajara from Texas in one day. Once there we will begin looking for a house to rent. We can stay with some friends at Harvest Language Center until we get the house rented.

Once we get settled in there, we plan to spend most of our time in December at the Regional Training center in Autlan 100 miles to the SW. We will be helping our fellow missionaries John and Elizabeth Rodgers. This we be a very exciting time as we use the month of December to get involved in the ministry at Autlan. More to come on this! The next post may be from Mexico! We have our schedule on the home page of our Website.

Nearly all of you are now plugged into Tecate Mission International for your monthly support, and we thank you for helping us make the transition...If you are a supporter who has not yet switched over, please click on the "Join Support Team" Link on our Website. There you will find the missions address if you would like to mail in a check every month. If you would like to give electronically, you can print out an ACH form and fill it out. This will allow Tecate Mission to receive the funds automatically each month from your account.

We are so thankful to those of you who have been such faithful supporters during this pre field ministry time. We would not be able to move without you! We are blessed to have 96% of our financial support for our ministry in Mexico, and we trust that God will continue to expand our prayer and financial support to provide the balance of around $300 in monthly support. We are grateful to have $10,000 in our outgoing fund that has transferred from Greater Europe Mission that will be used to pay for our moving expenses, rental of a house, Language school, and for a reserve fund. God has been so GOOD! We are in awe of His ways and grateful to be a part of His plan for the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel.

If you have any questions, comments or prayer requests, you can reply to this blog entry by following the comments link. We would love to hear from you!

Prayer requests:
* A renter for our house
* For our family as we organize and pack up our belongings
* For safety as we travel

Your partner in the Gospel,

Rick Bruggeman and family.

Answered Prayer

Many of you will remember that in May of 2006 I had a utlity trailer stolen from our house. I have often asked the Lord over the last year and a half to please let me find this trailer. I knew He knew where it was!! I didn't really figure He would see fit to answer that prayer but knew He could. I also prayed that He would make whoever stole it miserable and cause them to return it. That is exactly what He did!!

You can imagine our eyes popping out as we came back from the Portland Airport on Thursday the 30th of August. As we drove down our road, I said,"Hey, it looks like someone parked a trailer in front of our house." As we drove into past it I shouted "Hey, that's MY TRAILER!!" It looked alot different since they had cut the walls off, but once I got close I recognized it. I sounded like Gomer Pyle with alot of "Gollee's" and "Shazaam's". It was just one of thse things where it hits you right between the eyes that God hears those prayers and He does care about the things that are important to us. It's not as big of a deal as when He answers a prayer regarding another person you are praying for, but still is a vivid reminder I am His and He is mine! Thank you Lord!

Tecate, Mexico

What an awesome week of ministry! I spent the last week with three of my kids and a group of young people and adults on a spring break missions trip to Tecate, Mexico. We were hosted by Pastor Eufrazio of Boulevard Baptist Church. Our church has been sending a team down there for the last 7 years to work with Tecate Mission (see their website at www.tecatemission.com). We had two ministries while there. One group, which I helped in, did construction at "Iglesia Christina Bautista" (Christian Baptist Church). We were able to get the roof put on and the first coat of stucco applied to the outside of their new classroom building. I was able to work with Eddie, whose father is the Pastor of "Casa de Dios" (House of God) in Tecate.
It was a real blessing since he speaks great english and my Spanish is minimal. It was interesting to hear first hand of their church planting work in Mexico.
It was a pleasure to see Jessica, Brent, and Dane get involved with the Vacation Bible School that the Bethany team held. They especially liked the worship times at Rincon Baptist Church with Pastor Juan where they held the VBS.
Thank you for praying for us while we were gone; please pray for the Church in Tecate to prosper.

Lincoln City and Skamania

Our family had our socks blest off by the believers at Faith Baptist Church in Lincoln City,OR. This group has such a warm spirit and a vibrant fellowship of christians with a heart to see the world impacted for the Kingdom of God. As soon as I figure out how, I am going to post the photos's I took of my kids doing their first puppet show for Faith Baptist. The kids, both young and old really enjoyed it. This church has been such a huge encouragment to our desire to begin ministry in Ireland. The conference started Fri. with a great meal provided by Jeff and Lynn of Otis Cafe fame, then a message from Dorothy Woods about her ministry in Africa. Saturday morning was a wonderful brunch and time to get to know folks and for them to get to know us better. I spoke Sat. night and the response great. Several families expressed interest in investing with us in ministry to Ireland. Sunday School was with Todd Sholty with Young Life in Lincoln City, followed by Leo and Lulu Calva working in Ecuador. We wrapped it up by speaking to the youth group with Tony and Jeannie Gile.
Pastor Bard Marshall suggested I attend the Conservative Baptist NW Pastor's Conference in Stevenson,WA at Skamania Lodge. I didn't know it was going on but Monday 3/19 I was able to get a room and spent Tuesday and Wednesday interacting with Pastors at my display as they attended the conference. I met many Pastors who were interested in ministry to Ireland, and also had priveledge of having my display next to the one for Corban College and getting to visit some with Dr. Reno Hoff, President of the college. I am always encouraged whenever I get to talk with him and hear his passion for the college and where it's going.
God is good - all the time! Mexico here I come.

5 Mar 07

I have been working full-time doing pre-field ministry for Ireland for a month now. It has been great to be in better contact we people and to be able to pray more and plan more effectively. God has continued to bless me and show me new things along the way. I am reading more about Ireland and trying to get more of a feel for what is going on ministry-wise in Dublin right now. I have been getting some help from a friend on getting our website up and running. It will continue to grow as we "fill in the gaps" and hopefully can portray clearly the vision God has given us for evangelism and church planting.We are heading to Faith Baptist Church in Lincoln City,OR this weekend for a 3 day missions conference. We were there last year and the church joined our support team and has been a great encouragement to us since. One of the benefits of our support raising time has been the new friends we have made. Faith Baptist gave us a puppet ministry last year; they supplied a portable stage, puppets, and some great training from puppeteer Nan Osborne. The kids have been practicing this week so they can do a puppet show at the conference. Exciting stuff! We anticipate the Lord being able to use this ministry to kids in Dublin to share the Gospel. Can't wait!